Key Takeaways
- Average email open rates were 36.92% across industries, across email platforms
- Top open rates were achieved by “welcome” and transactional emails
- Worst performers were high volume, repetitive emails with no real substance
- Highest indicators of high open rates were personalization, intriguing subject lines, and timing – but personalization depth and emoji use are changing
- Engaging emails that use image personalization, countdown timers, and other dynamic widgets create a knock-on effect which increases the chance that future emails will be opened, too
We’ve studied the latest data from MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and other major platforms – to give you benchmarks by industry and email type. See what email types and sectors perform best, get practical advice to elevate your open rates, and free tools to enhance engagement.
Average Email Open Rates By Industry in 2026
First, let’s clarify what we mean by “open rate”:
Email open rate is defined as:
100 x unique email opens ÷ emails sent (not including bounced emails)
To find out open rate averages by industry, we aggregated multiple data sources for deeper, richer starting data. With a fuller picture, you can compare how well your emails are performing based on the best available data.
| Industry | Open Rate | Click-Through Rate |
| Overall Average | 36.92% | 2.56% |
| Agencies | 39.26% | 4.69% |
| Agriculture & Food Services | 37.11% | 2.21% |
| All Industries – Overall Average | 36.50% | 1.40% |
| Architecture & Construction | 34.52% | 2.61% |
| Arts & Artists | 46.26% | 2.71% |
| Automotive | 39.69% | 5.76% |
| Beauty & Personal Care | 36.21% | 1.27% |
| Business & Finance | 34.06% | 2.50% |
| Child Care Services | 44.80% | 1.70% |
| Coaching | 48.07% | 1.42% |
| Consulting | 35.22% | 2.24% |
| Consumer Packaged Goods | 20.00% | 1.90% |
| Creative Services & Agency | 40.19% | 2.08% |
| Education | 38.79% | 2.64% |
| Entertainment & Events | 37.25% | 1.90% |
| Government & Politics | 39.08% | 2.66% |
| Health & Wellness | 34.94% | 1.98% |
| Hobbies | 46.90% | 3.71% |
| Home & Maintenance | 34.76% | 1.57% |
| Legal | 38.61% | 5.44% |
| Manufacturing & Logistics | 28.15% | 2.59% |
| Marketing & Public Relations | 33.49% | 2.23% |
| Media & Publishing | 38.87% | 4.01% |
| Music | 41.44% | 2.12% |
| Non-Profit | 43.31% | 3.12% |
| Other | 32.40% | 2.38% |
| Photo & Video | 43.71% | 2.12% |
| Professional Services | 26.02% | 2.57% |
| Real Estate | 38.37% | 2.09% |
| Recruitment & Staffing | 38.83% | 2.03% |
| Religion | 49.84% | 3.00% |
| Restaurants & Food Services | 35.34% | 1.77% |
| Retail & Ecommerce | 33.33% | 1.87% |
| Social Networks | 37.15% | 3.34% |
| Sports & Games | 39.92% | 3.27% |
| Technology & Software | 31.12% | 2.58% |
| Telecommunications | 44.31% | 4.45% |
| Travel & Transportation | 30.52% | 1.83% |
The data in this study has been aggregated from data from Mailchimp [1], Campaign Monitor [2], GetResponse [3], and ConstantContact (via SmartInsights.com [4].
Average Email Open Rates by Email Type in 2026
When comparing open rates, it’s important to measure against the correct email type.
For instance, transactional emails; these are things like shipping and order confirmation, stock requests, and abandoned cart reminders. These are often necessary to open for further actions, so users are much more likely to view them.
Welcome emails tend to have higher open rates than general marketing emails because they land at peak interest – and often include activation links, discounts, or other actions.
Promotional email performance can vary by how often you send them. If you send multiple promo emails a week, then they will have lower open rates than those sent once a month. Optimising subject lines and previews is a massive factor, too – but we’ll get to these shortly.
| Email Type | Average Open Rate (%) | Average Click-Through-Rate (%) |
| Welcome Emails | 83.63% | 16.6% |
| Shipping Confirmation | 62.47% | 20.46% |
| Back in Stock | 59.19% | 19.47% |
| Order Confirmation | 48.04% | 9.81% |
| Abandoned Cart | 41.92% | 4.86% |
| Newsletter Emails | 40.08% | 3.84% |
| Promotional/Marketing Emails | ~20% | ~2% |
Data from GetResponse [3], omnisend.com [5], and emailtooltester.com [6].
Factors that Influence Email Open rates
Personalization
It used to be recommended to personalize the whole email – from subject to sign-off. But in an interesting twist, GetResponse’s latest data seems to go against this. Recipient names in the subject actually opened at lower rates than those without. So, best practice in 2026 is not to use the recipient’s name in the subject line, but only in the preheader and body copy.
It’s still important to personalise the recipient’s experience by using the products and categories they’re interested in, as well as offers that are in line with those interests.
GetResponse also found that widgets in emails (countdown timers, active elements such as GIFs etc) also make emails more engaging – they produce a knock-on effect where users want to open the next email to see what’s in there.
Subject Line Optimisation
You need an intriguing but not spammy subject line.
Where possible, subject lines should be 6 words long or less, fewer than 60 characters (around 40 for mobiles), and should avoid all caps and lots of exclamation marks to bypass spam filters.
Try using Omnisend’s Subject Line Tester to improve your email subject lines. It’s a great tool with lots of helpful features – but take it with a grain of salt; you know your audience, so use your gut when deciding what’s important in the wording.
There’s a debate about whether emojis should be used in email subject lines, and the consensus has generally been that emojis are good – but the latest data doesn’t back this up. On average, emojis in subject lines lead to lower open rates. This could be different for you if your audience resonates with this kind of styling, so it’s best to do some A/B testing to see if emojis work for you or not.
Email List Quality
The quality of your email list is a major factor in determining whether you’ll get good open rates – so make sure you keep your lists up to date, and audit for bots regularly.
Practical Recommendations for Email Marketers Who Want to Increase Open Rates
For brands targeting industry-average or above-average performance:
- Benchmark your open rates against the average in your industry
- Segment by email type before optimizing
- Focus equally on post-open conversion mechanics
- Use countdown timers selectively for time-sensitive campaigns
- Measure lift using holdout or A/B testing
Open Rates vs Conversions: Opens Alone Are Not Enough
While open rate is a critical top-of-funnel metric, it doesn’t directly measure revenue impact. After opening, your key downstream metrics include:
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Conversion rate
- Revenue per email (RPE)
High-performing ecommerce email programs optimize for open → click → conversion, not opens in isolation. You need to keep the interest beyond the open.
How do you do that?
Use Email Widgets to Improve Conversions
Email widgets are interactive, dynamic elements embedded within emails – things like countdown timers, personalized or dynamic images, and polls.
These elements render when the email is opened, and update in real time. The latest data show that dynamic elements like timers, forms, images, and other relevant content, can have a significant impact on conversions.
And countdown timers are an integral part of creating urgency, and driving action.
Countdown Timers in Ecommerce Emails
A countdown timer is a dynamic email widget that displays the remaining time before an offer, sale, or event expires.
Countdown timers improve conversions by taking advantage of three proven human behavioral mechanisms:
Urgency – Reduces procrastination.
Scarcity – Reinforces limited availability.
Attention anchoring – Draws focus immediately after emails are opened.
Create your free email countdown timer
- Fill out the form with your desired countdown options
- Click Generate
- Confirm your email address
- Copy and paste the provided HTML code into your email template
- Enjoy your free email countdown timer from Sendtric!
No watermark – Up to 10,000 views for FREE
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good email open rate for ecommerce in the US?
A good benchmark range is 30% to 40%, depending on list quality and email type.
How often should you send marketing emails?
The ideal frequency depends on your audience, but 1 to 3 emails per week is a good start.
What emails get the best open rates?
Welcome emails have open rates of over 80%. As a group, transactional emails like order confirmations, shipping alerts, password resets, and back in stock reminders get the highest open rates.
How can I improve email CTR?
Grab attention, create urgency – and give a clear call to action. Stick to the 60/40 rule, to avoid looking spammy or like a phishing email.
What is the 60/40 rule in email marketing?
The 60/40 rule is a simple guidance on image to text ratio. Your email should be at least 60% text and at most 40% images.
Sources
[1] https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/
[2] https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/knowledge-base/what-are-good-email-metrics/
[3] https://www.getresponse.com/resources/reports/email-marketing-benchmarks
[4] https://www.smartinsights.com/email-marketing/email-communications-strategy/statistics-sources-for-email-marketing/
[5] https://www.omnisend.com/blog/email-open-rate/
[6] https://www.emailtooltester.com/en/blog/email-marketing-statistics/